More and more women in Indonesia’s Aceh region on the island of Sumatra are being charged for morality crimes such as public affection or premarital sex, experts say, as greater internet access and globalisation bring clashes with local cultural and religious norms.

A report by the Agence France Presse (AFP) says that enforcement too has increased and now Aceh says it’s trying to follow Islamic law, which calls for women to whip female perpetrators. This is already what happens in neighbouring Malaysia.

But convincing women to participate has been no easy task, and it’s taken years to assemble the first female squad, according to Safriadi, who heads provincial capital Banda Aceh’s sharia Implementation Unit.

See the AFP report as carried by the South China Morning Post here